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\VTLLIAM ll. BRADLEY, OF NEV YORK, N. Y.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING WATER-GAS.

. SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 257,545, dated May 9, 188:3.

Application filed January 24, 1852. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WM. H. BRADLEY, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Process of Manufacture of Gas known as XVater-Gas, and I hereby declare the following to be a specification.

In the manufacture of illuminating gas, whether it is made with bituminous coal or with anthracite coal, steam, and naphtha, a certain amount of sulphur compounds are also produced, which must be extracted by purifying materials before the gas is fit for use.

When coal and steam are used to make what is known as water-gas the sulphur is found as sulphide of hydrogen, sometimes amounting to two per cent. of the products of the process.

The process now employed to make watergas consists in passing steam through red-hot coal; and the operation is to blow air in the bottom of the gasogene until the coal in it is sufficiently hot; then to introduce steam, either in the bottom or in the top, and causing the products of the decomposition to pass downward or upward through the incandescent coal, and the products-via, hydrogen, carbonic oxide, sulphide of hydrogen, and carbonic acid-are collected in a special holder.

The first object of my invention is to make hydrogen gas, or the products of the decomposition of steam by incandescent coal,free from or containing a much less amount of sulphur compounds as compared with methods now used; and the second object is to increase the amount of gas obtained from a given quantity of coal 5 and my invention consistsin introducing into a gasogene,in conjunction with the airblast used to make the coal hot, a proportional amount of steam, then closing off the air and steam and int-roducin g steam at the top of the gasogene, in the manner and for the purpose hereinafter more fully set forth.

The manner in which my invention may be carried into effect by those skilled in the art may be as follows In connection with a cupola or gasogenesuch as are now employed for making watergas-means are provided to introduce, in conjunction with the air-blast, a proportional quantity of steam. The proportion of steam to that of the air is more or less dependent on the quality of the coal used and the quantity of sulphide of iron it contains; but a one-inch steam-pipe carrying steam of about seventy -five pounds will be of sufficient capacity, and the quantity of steam can be regulated by means of valves. The steam, when introduced simultaneously with the air-blast, serves two purposes, one of which is that as the air-blast raises the teinperature of the coal the steain is decomposed and free hydrogen is produced. The nascent hydrogen reduces the sulphide of iron on the surface of the coal to iron and enters into combination with the sulphur to form sulphide of hydrogen, which passes off into the outer air. By the time the coal is raised to the proper temperature its surface will be practically free of sulphur, so that when the blast-pipe is closed and the steam alone is introduced a water-gas will be obtained practically free of sulphide of hydrogen. The other advantage is that the clinkers do not so easily run together in the presence of steam, and this renders the operation practical when the steam to produce the water-gas is introduced in the top of the gaso= gene or cupola.

The object of alternately introducing steam in the top and air and steam below is this: Steam when brought in contact with hot coal is first decomposed into hydrogen and carbonic 8o acid, and the temperature required for the decomposition of the steam is not very high; but the temperature required to reduce carbonic acid to carbonic oxide (CO to G0) is very high, or about white heat; and as the coal at the top in the cupola is of sufficiently high temperature to decompose the steam into hydrogen and carhome acid (H and 00 the latter will be reduced to carbonic oxide in its passage down ward, as it meets coal at a higher temperature. The saving of coal by this mode of working amounts to a great deal, for when steam is in troduced in the bottom of the cupola it at on cc lowers the temperature before the decomposition into the final components (H and G0) has 5 taken place. This decomposition takes place in the middle of the cupola.

It would not be practical to introduce air alone in the bottom of the cupola and steam in the top, for the reason that the formation of the clinkers would be so great as to fill up in a very short time the grates or air-passages,

as Well as to ruin the bottom of the cupola; but when air and steam are introduced simultaneously this objection is avoided.

Havingdescribed myinvention,what1claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is

The improvement in the process of making the gas known as Water-gas herein described, which consists in introducing steam together with air at the bottom of a cupola or generator containing carbonaceous fuel, for the purpose ofraising the fuel to incandescence, desulphurizing it, and preventing theformation of clinker and disintegrating it if formed, and in introducing steam into the generator at or near the 15 top thereof and causing it to pass in a downward direction through the incandescent carbon, substantially as described.-

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 21st day of January, 1882.

WILLIAM H. BRADLEY. Witnesses ORAZIO LUGO, STEPHEN H. OLIN. 

